Imagine that, one of the best movies ever made is only 75 minutes long. All those epics striving for significance with buttock-flattening running times outdone by Battleship Potemkin, a century-old silent movie lasting only one hour and 15 minutes.
Sight and Sound in their latest poll of the all-time greats currently have Potemkin in joint 54th place (alongside Blade Runner, Le Mépris, The Apartment and Sherlock Jr). Cahiers du Cinéma rate it highly. It’s one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
At breakneck speed it tells the story of a failed revolution, the one in 1905 when the Russian navy mutinied and, for a brief moment, the possibility of a new future opened up. The “first revolution”, the film calls it – the ruling Communists in 1925 seeking to add historical precedence to their successful takeover only eight years before.
The germ of action starts with the ratings on board the Potemkin, a ship in the Tsar’s fleet, complaining about the maggoty state of their food. When the officer class refuse to act, the disquiet becomes vocal, then physical and finally mutiny breaks out. It quickly spreads to other ships and eventually back to base in Odessa, where the body of a sailor killed in the fighting becomes a focal point for what looks like a revolution among the general populace (the fact that he looks like Lenin lying in state is surely significant).
Instead the army arrive and start shooting. The revolution is thwarted. The end.
It is all carefully staged but the most famous section – Part 4: The Odessa Staircase – is the most meticulously planned. First a sweeping shot of the huge staircase itself. Then a panoramic introduction to all strata of Russian society, from ladies in their finery to a legless beggar who moves about on his knuckles, to the mother and baby in its carriage which will, in the film’s most quoted moments, go bouncing perilously down those steps once the trouble starts. That baby carriage is vulnerability in an image, one that’s been re-used thematically and sometimes quoted literally (as Brian De Palma did in The Untouchables) ever since.
It’s only one example of Sergei Eisenstein’s use of bright, clear and dynamic images to tell his story. The grim phrase “dialectical montage” is often used in relation to the director’s work – one image (the thesis), is countered by another (the antithesis) to produce a third effect in the viewer (the synthesis). But in reality there is not much of that going on here. Instead’s it’s Eisenstein’s good, old-fashioned eye for a powerful image and his dynamic editing that have given this film its energy and staying power.
The film moves – there is barely a moment when there isn’t action of some sort taking place on the screen, a visual allegory of the frenzy of revolution, of events being out of control, the headiness of freedom and forward thrust leading to more forward thrust (until it hits the brick wall of a trained squadron of armed Cossacks).
Battleship Potemkin is, in short, an action movie.
Luckily for modern viewers, the film is in great shape (I watched the Kino version). You can see everything that’s going on. The image is sharp and has good contrast. There may be a touch of digital de-jittering “drag” in the image but that’s it. Clearly visible are faces chosen because they are expressive not good-lookers. That said, the opening shots of handsome sailors below decks on the Potemkin, stripped to the waist in what looks an early tryout for Abercrombie and Fitch advertising, gives some credence to suggestions about Eisenstein’s sexuality.
Who cares, right? This is genius at work. Though he never got anywhere in Hollywood, Eisenstein is literally writing the book here, in a movie that is years ahead of other movies in terms of editing, changing viewpoint and those celebrated montages. Audiences won’t be able to take it all in, was the prevailing point of view of other film-makers and critics at the time, people won’t know where they are. They will, was Eisenstein’s response. And he went ahead and proved it.
Battleship Potemkin – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
